Since there aren't many reviews of this mud out there, I've decided to write a very short, but hopefully a very informative one.

After playing this mud for about 12 years on and off, i have finally realized what keeps me coming back and sometimes even enjoying this game, so i decided to share my realization with fellow mudders, who might be looking for something new to try. However, i am not going to be concentrating on the basic game layout, but on the idea behind it.

The concept of the game, is a pretty basic slash and grind. Mostly everything in the game evolves around growing your character by either getting equipment (forges, quests, cycling) and through getting levels (a simple exp grind, both solo and group). Pretty basic stuff, but the twist is: absolutely everything in the game (except other players) is a hostile environment, the game very often tests your patience and rewards you with very little, but when those rewards come, they are truly welcome and appreciated.

On Slothmud, you can expect to not be spoon-fed anything. There are no guides, there is no abundance of information that teaches you about the game and almost all info that is available, is available through efforts of your fellow players, needless to say it's a rough place to be a newbie.
When you start the game. you are expected just to go out there and survive and find things out for yourself, be it the hard way, or... come to think of it, there is only the hard way..and there is a lot to learn..after 12 years i still find out things, that i never knew before, that make my gaming experience slightly more positive. As a newbie, you can fully expect to start a character and choose a class order that you will later realize (sometimes after months of playing), has absolutely no strengths, but only weaknesses, compared to a very similar class or build you could have chosen and the funny thing is, there is nothing there that could prepare you for it, only helpful comments from other players.. That alone, i think, really shows the mentality of the place.

To lure you in, like most evil things in life, the game starts out pretty smooth, monsters will be friendly, and upon death you will be handed your equipment back and these deaths will cost you nothing and levels will come quick.
However, the further you go, the harder it gets and the game has a pretty steep learning curve - pretty soon, monsters become aggressive, death becomes a real nuisance (exp loss, corpse retrieval), levels will feel like a lifetime apart and everything in general starts working against you:
Skills that you rely on, can and will fail you at the most important moment - need to heal yourself before the next round begins? Oops, you lose your concentration! You are Dead!
Need to flee out after a seriously buff aggro mobile attacked you when you were just exploring and were not prepared for anything? Oops, you start panicking and forget how to escape! You are dead! And now, after losing 30-50% of all the exp you made in the last hour, good luck getting all your hard-earned equipment back! It can be lying safely inside your corpse at a place your just died, or...that buff aggro mobile decided that he likes some of that gear and starts his plundering! Meanwhile, you reappear naked so many rooms away and your naked body is aching for a few long minutes of sleep, to gain some health and mana and while you sleep, i'm pretty confident that your dreams will not be very pleasant!
I am not exaggerating, everything in this game is earned with blood and tears and every step needs to be taken with caution.

Character progression starts out at a good pace, but the further you go, the harder it is to level and the harder it is to get any EQ and grinding really kicks in at later levels, the biggest progress comes from your knowledge of the game - one simple spell can mean the difference between dying and staying alive in a new area. A properly chosen tactic or a properly chosen area, can mean the difference between getting no exp at all and getting so much closer to that next level. A simple idea or a small advice from a fellow player can sometimes yield results that even the best equipment could never give you.

The idea then, is to master the game and that is what pulls you in and it is possible to accomplish to some degree, but to say that it takes a long time, is to say nothing at all. In this age of mainstream online RPG's that try and please the player at any cost, Slothmud really stands out with absolutely no regard for your happiness and even your interest in the game. But i guess that is where the paradox lies: do we all expect to be pleased by everything in life ? Or should some of that be earned through hard labor and dedication ? And Is a penny given to you, worth as much as a penny earned ?

For most players here, its not so much a game, as it is a simulation, that teaches you to deal with hardships , but people who have the patience to claw their way to the top, do get a weird sense of accomplishment when they look back at the road they took to get there.

That is why i play here and that is why i keep coming back, despite all the fancy graphical MMO's that are available to me at this moment in time.